Seattle to Portland Train

So here are some of the pics from the Yarn Crawl, I don't really have any group shots but that's because my cousin and I aren't real good crowd people, and have antisocial tendencies.

Union Station



Organizer Lady



Water barrel with Fremont Bridge in back on the walk to Dublin Bay.



Dublin Bay is a really cute store with some great yarns but as it was one of the closest stores to the station a whole bunch of people went there and it was too crowded to really be able to appreciate the selection. I did however their pastries and toffee, I suspect the former came from one of my favorite places St. Honore.

We were headed for the next place when we came across this building



it's home to one of the best pizza places, Hot Lips. I decided to be a little adventurous and try the Ham, Pear, & White Cheddar with a pesto bread-stick & their apple/lemon soda.



I have to say I think the flavor combination on the pizza worked really well, the ham was a kind of salty sweet and the fresh clean sweetness of the pear blended real well with it. The pesto bread-stick was totally awesome, and the soda was not what you'd normally expect it wasn't as sweet, but I think I liked it.

While we were eating in the restaurant we got a couple of cute little visitors, and they were not at all shy about coming right up to your chair.



We even met-up with some of the PDX knitters while we were there.



We also had a taste off between Cupcake Jones the chocolate & red velvet & Saint Cupcake peanut butter cookie.




I know, I know your supposed to use the same flavor but Saint Cupcake was out of Red Velvet if I remember right & I didn't miss it. I have to say though that I personally prefer Saint Cupcake, because the large cupcakes from Jones are filled and with the icing on top it just was too sweet for me, also the SC cupcake was moister.

We hit some other places that day but the best was Sock Dreams, where I got some most excellently off the wall socks.



Oh, yeah and I got yarn too, but only from Happy Knits and I actually bought yarn with a specific project in mind, usually I just get it because it's super pretty and can't pass it up or if I have a vague idea of what I want to use it for. Anyway here's a pic of my crawl booty.

Perler, The New Crack

Yep, I have a new addiction, not that I needed one as I don't have time for the ones I already have. Now for the details Perler beads are small, short, and multicolored tubes that you arrange into a design on a pegboard, and then melt with an iron.



They look so innocent and you think to yourself you know your cousin had had some of these and made some fun 8 bit characters from classic Nintendo games wouldn't those be just great for your friend who is a HUGE Mario fan? You know you could make a set of 3 or 4 iconic items from the game and he can turn them into magnets or hang them on his wall.

A few hours and many beads, and aching fingers later...



I have another friend who's pretty fond of Pacman so I made these for him.



It didn't stop there either, I was in full 8 bit mode and as I'd pretty much run out of black and white I picked up a second bucket at Ikea so I could make these...



It's a Moogle from FF7, I ended up having to glue the little pom pom on because the way it was designed I couldn't be the beads to melt together. I planned to also make the mages and possibly a couple of the main characters.

I also made some from one of my favorites Space Invaders, I'm not real sure about the proportions between the figures as I had to use multiple sites for images, but for the most part they look alright.



I have plans to make other characters including a Frankenstein for one of my friends but first I need to order some more of the individual colors for shading.